On February 2, I wrote to Defense
Secretary Robert Gates asking for information about reports that the
Army ignored evidence of the mental health problems of Pfc. Bradley
Manning, the soldier accused of leaking classified information to
WikiLeaks. I also asked for confirmation and explanation of
reports that the Army is holding Pfc. Manning in conditions that would
likely exacerbate his condition and could contribute to a violation of his Eighth Amendment right of protection from "cruel and unusual"
punishment.

This morning, The Washington Post reported that Pfc. Bradley J. Manning,
the Army intelligence analyst who is accused of being the source of the
WikiLeaks documents, was known by the Army to have had mental health
problems even before his deployment to Iraq. "At Fort Drum, Manning
balled up his fists and screamed at higher-ranking soldiers in his
unit." A "mental health specialist" recommended that he not be
deployed to Iraq, "but his immediate commanders sent him anyway."

In Iraq, evidence of his mental health problems accelerated. "[A]
master sergeant who supervised Manning was so concerned about the
private's mental health that he disabled Manning's weapon in December
2009. "[I]n May 2010, Manning was demoted a rank for assaulting a
fellow soldier."

The Army ignored Private Manning's mental health problems before he was
arrested for leaking the documents to WikiLeaks, and the consequences of
that disinterest are now obvious. Since his arrest, the Army has
reportedly treated Private Manning in a way that is almost certain to
exacerbate his mental health problems.

In December 2010, Glenn Greenwald reported on the conditions of Private
Manning's confinement at the Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia.

Since
his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any
episodes of violence or disciplinary problems. He nonetheless was
declared from the start to be a "Maximum Custody Detainee," the highest
and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the
basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him.

From
the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive
solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven
straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell.
Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred
even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce
those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's
being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized
imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed". For the
one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from
accessing any news or current events programs.

In sum, Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity- inducing
conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America's
Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having
been convicted of anything. And as is true of many prisoners subjected
to warped treatment of this sort, the brig's medical personnel now
administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his
brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.

On January 3, 2011, the Psychologists for Social Responsibility issued
an "Open Letter" in which they protested the conditions of Private
Manning's incarceration "based on the exhaustive documentation and
research that have determined that solitary confinement is, at the very
least, a form of cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment in violation of
U.S. law." Their Open Letter quotes extensively from the findings of
Dr. Craig Haney, 'a psychologist and expert in the assessment of
institutional environments'."

"Empirical research on solitary and supermax-like confinement has consistently and unequivocally documented the harmful consequences
of living in these kinds of environments . . . Evidence of these
negative psychological effects comes from personal accounts,
descriptive studies, and systematic research on solitary and
supermax-type confinement, conducted over a period of four decades, by
researchers from several different continents who had diverse
backgrounds and a wide range of professional expertise... [D]irect
studies of prison isolation have documented an extremely broad range of
harmful psychological reactions. These effects include increases in the
following potentially damaging symptoms and problematic behaviors:
negative attitudes and affect, insomnia, anxiety, panic, withdrawal,
hypersensitivity, ruminations, cognitive dysfunction, hallucinations,
loss of control, irritability, aggression, and rage, paranoia,
hopelessness, lethargy, depression, a sense of impending emotional
breakdown, self-mutilation, and suicidal ideation and behavior.

"To
summarize, there is not a single published study of solitary or
supermax-like confinement in which non-voluntary confinement lasting for
longer than 10 days where participants were unable to terminate their
isolation at will that failed to result in negative psychological
effects."

Today's article states that the Army actually recognized that Private
Manning had mental health problems, but deployed him to Iraq anyway.
Once he was in Iraq, the Army reportedly did not adequately supervise
him and allowed his mental health problems to fester. His sergeant
recognized that Manning's mental health was so compromised that he took
the unusual step of disabling Manning's weapon in a war zone.

Now, reports indicate that the Army has taken Pfc. Manning, a soldier
with documented mental health problems, and confined him under
conditions that are almost guaranteed to exacerbate his mental health
problems. If true, the Army's treatment would obviously constitute
"cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the Eighth Amendment to
the United States Constitution.

If these reports are true, the Army must end the extreme conditions of
Private Manning's confinement, and provide him with the mental health
treatment that the Army recognized he needed even before his deployment
to Iraq. At the very least, the Army must explain the justification for
confining someone with mental health problems under conditions that are
virtually certain to exacerbate those problems and explain the danger
he now presents that only these extreme conditions of confinement can
avoid.